Running from the World
by Mercy Flynn
Summary: El has been on the run her entire life. But after stumbling into the Forbidden Forest, has she finally found the answers she was looking for, or just another world that she must hide from? ON HIATUS
1. Guns and Shape Shifters

**Disclaimer:** Ok, I'm only going to write this once so please read it carefully. First people you are on fanfiction, that along should tip you off. If not, while reading this story a few things might sound similar to something you've read/seen before, (ok maybe not in the first chapter, but after that things better start clicking in your head.) If things aren't clicking, you have obviously been living under a rock for the last decade and a half. So after a decade and a half of living in the wilderness you have decided to re-join with humanity (congrats by the way!), and gone to the nearest internet café, tapped your neighbour on the shoulder and asked him to point you to a website that will get you up-to-date on what has happened in the last 15 years which he has replied by directing you to this fanfic story. I'm flattered, really, that after all this time, my story is the first contact you have had with civilisation besides my stalker next to you and the grunt you gave the waitress behind the counter, who is mentally begging you to buy something. However, I must disappoint you, you would be much better off looking for the closest physiologist, for both you and the guy next to you. So if you have reached the end of this paragraph and still have no idea of its point, here it is: I do not own the world of Harry Potter.

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><p>A howl pierced the night air. The bark of a dog quickly followed. El's head jerked up. When she had first noticed the forest south of London, she had thought it the perfected place to hide out for the two months she had provisions for. Now, after three nights in this God cursed woods, she wasn't sure.<p>

The howl came again, made more frightening by the soft breeze that made the trees whisper and the shadows move under the full moon. El quickly made up her mind. She doused the fire, packed up her swag, an amazing invention by the Australians, and shoved everything into her pack. Scampering up the nearest tree, she decided that she would spend the rest of the night here, then walk back to the road tomorrow and hitchhike back to London.

El pulled her small handgun from her shoulder holster, after checking it was loaded and the safety was on, she slipped it back into its place, feeling safer. She then settled back and tried to sleep. But sleep would not come. The strange feelings she had been getting from the forest kept flirting through her mind. During the day she had seen spiders that were much bigger than any spider ought to be, one she swore was the size of a toddler. The first night she had woken up and saw coloured lights hovering over the embers of her fire. In the morning she had past it off as a dream, but now she wasn't so sure. And last night she could feel that she was being watched, while about a hundred metres off were a group of … somethings. They felt like humans, but some instinct inside of told her they weren't.

Suddenly, a stag thundered past.

El almost fell out of the tree getting her gun out and pointing in the direction the great animal gone. She didn't have time calm her galloping heart before another creature speed after the stag. But unlike the stag, this creature didn't run past her and off into the night. She could see the instant in which its prey had changed from the stag to her. It was halfway through the clearing that she had set up camp in, when she saw its ears prick, and it veered towards the remanent of her camp fire. It went from full pleat to a graceful walk in a couple of its long strides. After a quick sniff of the area where she had set up her swag, it lifted its head and looked straight at her. The breeze picked up and moved a tree branch, allowing the moon to shine down clearly on the creature.

She had first through it was a wolf, but no wolf could possibly be that big or have such intelligent, menacing, yellow eyes.

It howled.

The sound that spilled from its throat stilled the world around her. The gun lay forgotten in her hand. Nothing registered but the beating of her heart and that one long note.

When it stopped, El felt as though someone had thrown cold water. Jerking the gun up, she took off the safety and aimed. But before she could fire, the stag thundered into the clearing again, and with a swipe of its antlers, took out the wolf's feet. The wolf fell down in a heap, as the stag jumped gracefully over it and galloped out of the clearing again. As the wolf jumped to its feet and spun to growl at the direction that stag had gone, El hoped that the wolf would chase it instead of focusing on her, but her heart sank as it turned towards her again and began to lope forward to the base of her tree.

Suddenly it was jerked to the left and almost lost its feet again. El couldn't see what had attacked it this time until the two creatures began circling each other in a patch of moonlight. Her saviour this time a giant black dog. When she said giant, she meant that that it was big for a dog, but still didn't come close to the size of the wolf. She knew that, unless the stag came back, the dog would lose the fight as, like most large dogs, it didn't have the speed or agility the wolf possessed.

El was so concentrated on the fight that she didn't notice a rat climb up the tree and sit on a nearby branch, nor did she notice when the rat turned into a pudgy boy. So she nearly fell out of the tree for the second time that night when a voice beside her said, 'There's a girl up here! Prongs what do we do?'

As if summoned, the stag galloped into the clearing and ran straight for the wolf, making it jump back to avoid getting trampled. Then the stag, almost lazily, trotted over to the foot of El's tree, before it started shrinking. Before El could blink, a boy stood in its place, grinning up at her. 'So it is! Moony, if it's a girl you want, you know you only need to ask Rebbeca Abbot out.' The boy turned back to the fight that was still continuing between the dog and the wolf. 'Padfoot let's get Moony back to the shack and then I'll come back and take this one to the school.' The dog yipped and danced back as the wolf lunged again. The boy turned back to her and winked, 'You stay right hear luv, and I'll be back.' And with that he ran towards the fight. Midstride he started changing, he bent forward and suddenly, his hands were hooves that were pounding into the dirt. The stag/boy jumped over the wolf, knocking it on its side and raced off into the woods, with the dog following. El almost had a heart attack when she saw her two protectors run off into the woods, at least until she saw the wolf get up and race after then both.

She turned to the side just in time to see other pudgy boy turn into a rat and race down the tree and into the darkness.

Silence.

El just sat there, clinging to the tree, listening to her breath rasping through her lungs, and silence. The whole incident, from the time the stag had first run through the clearing to the time the rat had disappear, would have only taken three minutes.

After a while, she realised that she stilled had the gun clutched in her hand, safety off. With trembling hands, she put the safety back on and shoved it into the holster. Taking a deep breath, she checked that her pack was still safely stowed in the fork of the tree. Only then did she allow herself to think about what she saw.

A boy had turned into a stag. And another one had turned into a rat.

El gripped the tree, closed her eyes and concentrated on taking deep breaths. This was what she had be running from. Jay had always called it Government science experiments, but she knew that there was no way it was science that had been experimented on her. Nor would science be able to explain a boy turning into a rat a tenth of his size or into a stag that was twice his size.

El was torn. A life time of running and hiding made her instincts scream to run, to get out of here and disappear before the boy returned. _These are the people who tortured you_, a part of her yelled. _ These are the people that Jay warned you about. _

But another part of her wanted answers, a deep need of understand clawed at her heart. After all, they were only boys, 15 at most. They could not have been a part of what had happened at least 12 years earlier.

But the stag boy had said something about a school, there would have to be other people at the school. Maybe they would be the ones responsible, and the boys were just more lab rats. Though she admitted that they didn't exactly look like people who had been experimented on against their will, other than the fact they turned into animals.

She was still leaning against the tree taking deep breaths. She needed to make a decision and fast. She didn't know how far away the shack was or how long it would take the stag boy to get back.

What would Jay do? Would she be dishonouring his memory by not listening to his advice when she had finally found the proof that his conspiracy theories were right? But then again he had always said she would need knowledge if she wanted to survive. Going with the boy would give her knowledge.

But how would she explain being in the forest? Camping, she decided, and her thoughts turned to her explanation of her being here. And without making a conscious decision she knew that she would stay and wait for the boy.

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><p><strong>AN: **In an effort to encourage reviewers I have decided to ask a question at the end of each chapter. So the question for this chapter is: Does anybody know what year would it have been when the Marauders where in the 4th year? I'm only going say this once because I don't want to seem pushy, but please review, this is my first story and without reviews I will shrivel up and die, (or more likely stop putting up stories and go back to doing maths). Also constructive criticism is welcome!

Also as this is my first story in not sure about rating or genre, any help with this would be more than welcome. And I don't like the title either, so again, any ideas would really help. Thanks!

Flynn


	2. Packs and Castles

It didn't take long before the stag bounded into view. El watched closely as he changed back into a boy. He had a messy, black mop of hair and was just taller than her, with jean and army green jacket on. That infuriatingly cheeky grin was still on his face. 'Well, are you going to get out of that tree or not?'

She pointed her hunting knife at him and let her hand shake slightly. 'W-who are hell are you? And how did you… did you do th-that?' Her voice was high and wavering and she kept her eyes wide. She knew she looked frightened, which was exactly what she was going for. She wanted to appear ignorant, angry and frightened, the most likely reaction of a teenage girl camping alone in the middle of the forest who has just seen something unexplainable and very frightening. It wasn't that hard to fake considering her current state of mind.

The boy sighed, 'I'm James Potter, and I'm an animagus,' he shrugged, 'I can change into a stag.'

'An ani ani-what?' she didn't move.

'An animagus,' he explained patiently, 'It means I can change into an animal.'

'Was the rat an animagus too?'

'Peter? Yeah, and Sirius as well, he was the dog.'

'What about the wolf? Why did he try to attack me?'

'Ahh, well Remus is different. He couldn't help it, trust me, he'll feel horrible about it in the morning.' She had started to shake, pretending to go into shock. 'Why don't you come down now?'

'So are you like a werestag? Will you bite me?' She ignored him, not moving from her position of pointing the shaking knife at him.

He laughed, 'No I don't bite. I taught myself to become an animagus.'

He sounded proud when he said he taught himself, not exactly what El expected if he was actually a test subject. So she decided to get down. Putting her knife in its sheath and shoving it into her pack, she dropped it on the ground before jumping down herself. On landing, she stumbled and James grabbed her forearm to steady her. Instinctively, she yanked her arm away, took a step back and faced him, ready for an attack.

He looked surprised, but just held up his hands in surrender, 'Sorry, I was just helping you out. What's your name by the way?'

'El,' she scrambled through her brain, trying to remember the name of the ID that was loose in her pack. She cursed herself for forgetting, but with six different identities, the other ID documents were in the false bottom of her pack, it was sometime hard to keep track of who she was supposed to be, especially when she hadn't planned on meeting anyone. 'Elizabeth Johnson.' She spluttered, as the name came to her. Hoping to cover her hesitation, she started to walk over to her pack, but he got there first.

'Do you want me to carry that? It looks heavy.' He heavied it up on his shoulder and staggered. 'What do you have in here, an entire house?'

'No. And here give it to me. I can carry it.' She quickly pulled it off his shoulder and heaved it onto hers. He had no idea how close he came when he said the pack contained a house, because it certainly contained a home, her home. Everything that she own was in her pack, so it was naturally going to be heavy.

'Alright, this way then. We can walk while you tell me what you're doing in the forest.' And he started walking off through the woods.

'Where are you taking me?' She ignored his question and jogged to catch up with him. He saw this and slowed down a bit. 'Don't slow down for me.' She said affronted. 'I can keep up with you.' Sure she was no marathon runner, but a life on the run meant she wasn't weak; she could keep up with him easy.

James just raised an eyebrow at her and answered her question, 'Hogwarts, it's my school up there.'

An image of a twisted Professor X's school in X Men popped into her head. 'There's a school in the middle of the forest?'

'It's on the edge of the forest, which brings me back to my original question, what were you doing in here?'

'I was camping.'

'Alone?'

'Yeah alone, I've done it before. This was the first time I camped outside of a camp ground though.' El let James think over for a while before asking, 'How does one learn to become an ani-whatever you call it?'

'Oh, it's just a spell. Umm,' He looked at her anxiously, 'maybe I shouldn't be telling you this.'

'Why not?' Her stomach tightened, she hoped that this was worth it, that she'd get the answers she was looking for without having to pay her freedom for it.

'Professor Dumbledore would be able to answer your questions better than me. Watch out for that…' But James warning came too late as El smashed into an overhanging tree branch that she hadn't seen in the dark.

'Ow.'

'Sorry about that.'

El kept silent after that, praying she had made the right decision and was not a lamb being led to the slaughter.

They walked for a while, when suddenly they were out of the forest, and she saw the school for the first time.

_M*F_

She let out a soft gasp when she saw the castle. James smirked, most people had that reaction to seeing it for the first time. He had to admit it was pretty impressive.

He was impressed with the muggle too. She seemed to have calmed down a lot during their walk through the forest. She had been clinging to the tree, knife waving wildly in front of her, when he came back for her. Now, she was still scared, but not about to do something stupid, like cut his eye out. She looked to be about his age, just a bit shorter than him, with dirty blond hair cut to reach just past her shoulders. She was strong, he knew that from the ease that she hefted the pack and the way she had yank her arm out of his hand. But it wasn't just that she was strong, she was also tough too, from the hard glint in her steel eyes to the way she carried herself and walked, hell, even her cloths made her look tough with the thick leather jacket. And it wasn't one of those fashionable jackets with soft leather, no, it was one of those bikie jackets with padding and leather that was made to last in some pretty tough scrapes. Whoever this muggle was, she was tough. Getting attacked by a wolf wasn't nearly stressful enough to turn this girl into a bumbling mess like most girls he knew.

He led her up grounds, thinking about his next problem. To get her to Dumbledore, who will know what to do with her, he'd need to see Professor McGonagall, and she'd want an explanation of why he was out in the Forbidden Forest. He was still contemplating this when pushed open the front doors, and ran straight into the Headmaster. 'Professor Dumbledore.' He exclaimed in surprise.

'Hello Mr Potter. Taking a nice midnight walk were we?' Blue eyes twinkled down on James amused. 'And who do we have here?' Dumbledore turned to El.

'This is Elizabeth Johnson. I found her, um, in the Forbidden Forest, sir.' James mumbled the last bit, looking at his shoes. While Sirius, Remus, Peter and himself were pretty sure that Professor Dumbledore knew that they were animagi and went out with Remus on the full moon, they had never given Dumbledore any proof.

'Ah, I see. Hmmm, well why doesn't Miss Johnson come with me, and then you can go. I'm sure your friends will be worried about you by now.'

'Thanks sir.' James smiled up at the Headmaster relieved. He was about to say good bye to El, when he saw her face. She was petrified; her expression begged him not to go. He felt really guilty for leaving her like this, with a complete stranger. But then again he was still a stranger wasn't he? And Dumbledore is really nice, he'd be able to explain to her what was going on, or better yet, do a memory charm and make her forget the whole night. So he just said, 'You'll be fine with Professor Dumbledore, he'll know what to do,' and ran out the front door again.

_M*F_

El gulped as she watched James sprint out the door again. She hated the fact that it wasn't all the act that made her want to race after him and cling onto his arm. She felt like slapping herself, she didn't need him, she didn't need anyone, she could get by on her own.

She turned back to the old man. James had called him Professor Dumbledore, so he must be the man James had said would be able to explain things. The most striking feature about him was his blue eyes that were both kind and piercing, as if he could see through her already. But she would play her part for all its worth, she would get her information and then get out of here, and the best way to do that would be to play ignorant.

'Who are you?' she asked in a nervous but strong voice.

'I'm Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster of this school.' He replied calmly. 'But the more important question, and no doubt more interesting, is who are?'

'I'm Elizabeth Johnson, but I prefer El.'

'Ah but a name never adequately describes who that person is, don't you agree. But here is not the place for such a conversation. Why don't we go up to my office and have a cup of tea and a lemon drop?'

The Professor led her through the halls of the school. It became very obvious to El that this was no ordinary school. Not only were there odd medieval things like suits of armour and candle holders on the walls, but also things that should not be possible, like people snoring in the paintings and moving stairs.

'The pictures move.' She whispered in awe.

'Yes they have a tendency to do that don't they?'

'Where are we?'

'You're in Hogwarts, my dear. School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'

'Witchcraft and Wizardry?'

Yes. You see, some people are born witches and wizards, meaning that they can do magic. They come here to learn how to control that magic. Though sometimes we do miss someone.' He looked down at her pointedly. Inwardly she scoffed, she was not born the way she was, she was tortured and experimented on. Nothing he could say would make her believe any differently. So she pretended to miss that look, and continue to walk on.

They soon came across a giant eagle statue. 'Jelly bellies.' Dumbledore said clearly, and the statue started to move revealing a set of stairs the rose from the ground. El knew that with high tech equipment, what she had just witnessed could be easily explained. But El's instincts told her that no equipment had caused what she had just seen.

Up the stairs was his office, which was contained all manner of little nick nacks. She sat in the chair opposite the desk and waited for Dumbledore to begin.

'Before I ask the Heads of the Houses to join us…'

'Heads of the Houses?' El interrupted.

'Yes, there are four houses in Hogwarts, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. The Heads of these four Houses are staff that look after the students in their House.' He paused, waiting for her to ask another question. When she didn't, he continued, 'So before I ask the Heads of the Houses to join us, I would like you to go through what happened tonight, please.'

'Well, I was camping in the forest, and just as I was packing up to go to sleep, I started hearing howls.' She retold the whole story, making sure to sound like someone who lived a normal life. When she had finished he just sat there thinking for a while.

'Hmmm. Well I'm glad Sirius and James could keep you from being hurt. But the problem is that they aren't supposed to be there at all, or be animagi either. So I and I'm sure they, will be much appreciated if we just kept that between ourselves.'

'So what, I just wondered into the castle?'

'No, let's just say that I found you in the forest.'

El shrugged, it made no difference to her. 'Why do you need to bring the Heads in? Can't you just tell me what's going on, I'll promise never to tell anyone about it, and then I go home?'

'Well, it's a bit more complicated than that, and it will involve Hogwarts, so the Heads will need to be informed as well, so it would be best to tell everyone at once.'

'Everyone including me?'

'Yes, my dear.' Dumbledore walked over to the fireplace, grabbed a handful of powder out of a jar on the mantel piece and went down on his knees. Throwing the powder into the fire, he stuck he head into the now green flames and said, 'Minerva, Horace, Derik, Vadoma, I'm sorry for disturbing you so late, but would you all be so kind as to come to my office please.' Standing up from the fireplace, he looked at her, 'Now, how about a cup of tea before they arrive?' When he just waved a twig of wood and a tea pot and cups appeared on the desk, she quickly declined, she had no idea what was in that, and she would not be drinking it. 'No? What about a lemon drop then?' She was glad when he just offered a container of lollies, but she still shook her head.

Suddenly, much faster than she would have expected, there was a brisk knock at the door.

'Come in.' Dumbledore said.

The door opened and the Heads of Houses entered.

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><p><strong>AN:** Question for this chapter is: What teachers do you think would have been around during the Marauders time? Also, harrpotterfanforever247 has informed me that the Marauders didn't become animagi (or is it animaguses?) until their fifth year, however, my story will work better if it starts off at the end of their fourth, so I'm sorry about not keeping with the original details, but it can't be helped.

Flynn


	3. Magic and Homes

The door to Dumbledore's office opened, allowing the four Heads of Houses to enter. The first was a short, plump woman, with albino white, frizzy hair and the palest blue eyes. She had obviously been woken up because she was in a night gown with a shawl over the top. El thought the whole picture of her looked very motherly. The next man had obviously been woken up as well, as he was wrapped in an emerald green robe with black fur around the collar and hem. He too was short and on the rounder side, with a receding hairline. Next came a woman who too looked tired, but not because she had just been woken up, but rather because she had never gone to sleep. She looked to be in her early thirties, but because of the crow's feet, partially hidden behind her glasses, and the severe bun she had her hair in, El found it hard to be sure. Last came a tall, broad man who looked by far the most awake of all the teachers. He seemed to be rather young and fit, with long brown hair he kept tied back at the nape of his neck, but there was a sternness to his brown eyes, and an inner strength in his square jaw, that belied his young age.

'What's this about Dumbledore? It had better be good to get me up at 2 o'clock in the morning?' The short man addressed Dumbledore. Looking around the room for the first time since entering, he jumped a little when he noticed El. 'Oh, hello there, I didn't see you.'

'Miss Johnson, this is Professor Slughorn, the Head of Slytherin and our Potions Master.' He nodded his head to the short man, who was still looking slightly surprised by her appearance. Dumbledore turned to the motherly woman, 'This is Professor Medina, Head of Hufflepuff and Divination teacher. Professor McGonagall is the Deputy Headmistress and Head of Gryffindor, she teaches Transfiguration.' Dumbledore nodded to the youngish woman, before turning to the broad man. 'And lastly our Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Professor Holt, Head of Ravenclaw. This, my dear Professors, is Elizabeth Johnson. I found her camping in our Forbidden Forest.'

Professor McGonagall paled at this. 'But tonight's the …' she cut herself off, 'Are you sure she's not hurt Dumbledore, thank goodness you found her.'

'No, she's not hurt, but there are a few things concerning her we must discuss.' Dumbledore replied.

'Why I agree that it was lucky you have found her, I do not see what needs to be discussed. Just put a memory charm on her and send her home in the morning.' Professor Holt had given El a glance on arrival, but, almost as if he had decided she was uninteresting, hadn't looked at her again.

'No, she must stay at Hogwarts.' The motherly Professor Medina announced softly. The other three Heads glanced at her sharply.

Dumbledore nodded calmly, 'Yes I agree. Miss Johnson must remain here, at least until she's able to control her magic.' The Heads of Slytherin, Griffindor and Ravenclaw switched their surprised stares from Medina to Dumbledore.

'Magic,' burst out El, who the Heads had forgotten was in the room, 'I don't have any magic.' She could feel herself beginning to panic. She couldn't stay here. She _wouldn't_ stay here. _Calm down_, she mentally chaste herself. _Panicking will not help me, I need to think clearly if I'm going to get out of here._ She had given up on her quest to find information. It wasn't worth it, not it they were planning of keeping her here indefinitely. She would have to survive on the information she had already gathered. Slowly she felt herself beginning to calm, as her mind thought of escape plans. Her outer appearance though, was still that of a panicky teenager, whose world slowly began to turn upside down.

Holt had switched his astonished stare at Dumbledore, to a more piercing one at El. Both McGonagall and Slughorn still born looks of shock, and Medina was still smiling happily, as if this was all a perfectly normal conversation. So it was Dumbledore who answered her. 'You do have magic, Miss Johnson. Has anything strange or unusual happened to you, anything you couldn't explain?'

Well of course she could do a strange and unusual thing, but it wasn't from magic, well, at least no magic she had be born with. Unsure of what other strange and unusual things she was meant to be able to do, she just shook her head.

'But you are right Dumbledore, she is very obviously a witch.' Holt concluded, after apparently finishing his evaluation of her.

'But I don't understand this Albus? How could she have not received a letter! Every witch or wizard within the United Kingdom received a letter on their eleventh birthday, inviting them to attend Hogwarts.' McGonagall has said the last sentence as if reading from a book. Turning very suddenly to El, she demanded, 'How old are you child?'

'Sixteen,' replied El. That was what it said on Elizabeth Johnson's identification documents at least, while El guessed that she was more likely around seventeen.

'I had no problems with sending out letters five years ago, everything had run smoothly.' McGonagall said, still flustered.

'Maybe she wasn't in the UK five years ago?' Professor Medina questioned calmly. They all turned to El.

'Umm, no. I was living in London when I was eleven.' Truth be told, El wasn't exactly sure where she was five years ago. She was pretty sure she would have still been in England, but then again, five years ago might have been the time that Jay had taken her over to Italy.

'Hmm, yes that is quiet a quandary.' Dumbledore said thoughtfully, peering at El over his glasses, as if he knew and understood her uncertainty on the matter. 'But it is a matter that can be pondered over another time. What we need to decide now is what shall become of Miss Johnson?'

'Well, she'll have to attend Hogwarts of course. We can't have an untrained witch running around London can we.' Slughorn winked at her, and chuckled quietly, as if they were sharing a joke on the absurdity of letting go.

'Ok, hold on a second here,' El interrupted, playing the angry teenager, 'Even if I am a witch, or whatever, which I know I'm not, why the hell can't I just go home. I mean, I haven't shown any magical abilities,' she made quotation signs with her fingers over the last two words and rolled her eyes, 'so I'm not going to accidently blow up London or anything.' She glared at Slughorn.

'On the contrary,' Dumbledore brought her attention back to him, 'Untrained magic can be very dangerous, not only to the people around you, but to the caster themselves.'

'So what? You're going to keep me here by _force_?' El allowed her voice to climb in panic.

'No, of course not my dear girl. But you need to be taught how to control your magic. Normally, I would let you join the first years and we would see how you went from there, but as summer holidays start in two days, what I suggest is that you have one-on-one tutoring with a Professor over the holidays, and then at beginning of term next year we reassess where you are. Of course we won't just kidnap you.' he held up his hands to forestall El as she opened her mouth to argue, 'How about tomorrow, Professor Holt will take you home where he can explain the situation to your parents, and you can pack. You will have to leave that afternoon I'm sorry, because we will need the train the day after, and I want your lessons to start the day after that.'

Thoughts whirled through El's head. She couldn't take Professor Holt home to talk to her parents, because she didn't have parents, nor a home. The closest thing to a family she ever had was Jay, and he had died last year. The way the Headmaster had describe going 'home', made it sound like El was a prisoner, getting escorted from one place to another. She'd doubt Professor Holt would leave her alone for one minute. _There would be no way I would be able to fight him and escape_, she thought, eyeing his big frame. But she couldn't tell them she had no parents either. The knowledge that someone would be looking for her would be the only thing that is currently stoping them from kidnapping her. El's mind spun, trying to figure some way out of this situation.

Luckily for her, the Professors had started talking again, so no one noticed her hesitation. 'But Dumbledore,' implored Slughorn, 'that would mean a Professor giving up their entire holidays! And I certainly can't do that, I've been invited over to France by our ambassador. You remember Jonathon Fletcher, the Ravenclaw who graduated ten years ago.'

'Dear Horace, I'm not suggesting one Professor tutor Miss Johnson for the entire holidays, but rather we all take it in turn, tutoring for one week, two at most. But all this can be sorted out tomorrow, when we've had some more sleep. Minerva, would you be able to find a room for Miss Johnson to stay in tonight. I'll organise for the house elves to deliver breakfast to you in the morning,' Dumbledore said, turning back to El again, 'and then Professor Holt will come and pick you up and take you home. How does that suit everyone?' Dumbledore asked, looking around the room.

'I can't go home.' El burst out, she had to say something. 'What I mean is no-one will be at home.' She lied, thinking on her feet. 'My parents have gone on a safari in Africa. They won't be back for another two months.' She hoped that that would be reason enough to explain why no-one would be looking for her just yet, but also providing a time as to when she will be missed, so they wouldn't be able to keep her here forever.

'Well then who is looking after you?' Dumbledore asked surprised.

'No-one, I'm sixteen, I can look after myself.'

'But you would still need to go home and get more clothes won't you?'

'No, it's ok. I packed to go camping out here for two weeks, without being able to wash my clothes. Don't worry, I've got everything I need here.' She patted her pack, which in truth contained everything she owned. 'But I'll need to go home for the week before the term starts. My parents come home then and I want to see them.'

'Well, that would be fine. Hopefully by that time you would have enough understanding of magic not to do any serious harm in a week.' Dumbledore smiled at her. 'Well then Derik, it looks like you will not be needed tomorrow, I'll visit Miss Johnson in the morning to see if she needs anything. Is there any more concerns regarding Miss Johnson?' He looked around at the teachers, when they all shock their heads he stood up. 'Well then, Miss Johnson I'll see you in the morning.' And he ushered everyone out the door.

Back down in the corridor, the Professors all said good night to each other, and McGonagall led her through the castle. Finally she stopped in front of a door and opened it. Inside it was a small sitting room with two doors leading off to the sides. McGonagall waved a similar looking stick to the one Dumbledore had, and a fire burst into life in the fireplace.

'Through there is the bedroom, and that leads to the bathroom. The house elves will deliver you breakfast in the morning. Good night.' And with that, the Head of Griffindor left, closing the door behind her.

El dropped her pack in the corner and started pacing the room. She was way too awake and full of adrenaline to even think of sleeping. For the first time since this whole crazy thing had started, did she allow herself to show her true fear of the situation she found herself in. _How could I have let this happen? I've been kidnapped again by the same people who experimented on me before! Who knows what they'll do to me this time, they have obviously moved on from mental powers to the more physical. What if they want to chop me up! Or turn me into a grotesque combination of animals? _

The sting in the back of her eyes from tears building up, snapped her out of her panic. What was she doing? Pacing here nervously about to burst into tears as if she was as useless as child. What would Jay think if he could see her now?

El took a deep breath to calm herself, sat down on a couch and began going through the options still left to her. One, she could stay here for the two months and then try to escape when the let her visit her 'parents'. When she was being rational, she didn't think that they were going to experiment on her, it sounded more as if they wanted to teach her about some 'magic' that she possessed, so she doubted she was in any physical danger during those two months. The problem with this plan is what would happen to her when they realises that she doesn't possess any magic. Would they let her go or kill her? Also, what if she wasn't able to get away when they left for her 'home'. But this was a minor problem, as she would have two whole months to think of a plan that would work. She didn't like the thought of having to stay here for two months, but it would give her time to learn more about this new world that she found herself in, while still maintaining a good chance of escaping in the end.

Her second option was to try and escape tonight. Yes, she wouldn't be able to learn more about this world, but she believed that she now knew enough to be able to avoid it. Escaping tonight would rule out any possibility of being experimented on, and of any chance that she slipped up and reviled that she wasn't who she pretended to be. She also doubted they had put any sort of tracker on her yet, which they might sometime during the next two months, so if she did manage to escape she would be secure in the knowledge she wasn't being followed. This was a very strong benefit in El's mind. Freedom wasn't worth anything if she had to keep looking over her shoulder. That is what decided it, she would leave tonight.

But first she had to plan. She glanced at an old Grandfather clock in the corner of the sitting room; it said the time was 2:30 am. She couldn't leave right now, for one she had noticed that most of the painting had been asleep before Dumbledore and her had past, but had woken up as they heard their footsteps. She hoped that if she waited for a while, they would go back to sleep and she would be able to sneak out without anyone noticing. She also didn't want to run into James and his friends again in the forest, so she decided she'd wait unit just before dawn. Having an hour to kill, she decided to have a shower and mull over the rest of the details.

_M*F_

At exactly 3:30am by the Grandfather clock, as the room began to illuminate with the predawn light, she stood up and hefted her pack onto her back. Walking to the door, she quietly opened it and disappeared into the darkened corridor.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Question: Does anyone how long the summer holidays are for Hogwarts student, or even just in England? For my UK readers, and I know your there 'cause I can see you in my story stats, I would really appreciate it if you answered this question, it would help a lot.

Flynn


	4. Translucent Men and Staff Meetings

Derik Holt slowly paced the corridors in the pre-dawn light. Not many teachers like the corridor duty just before the beginning of the day, but Derik preferred it. No students were up to any pranks this early in the morning, ensure that this watch was by far the quietest. This allowed Derik to just randomly pace the corridors, mulling over the latest discovery in the _Spellcraft Journal_. Derik was extremely intelligent, but without any ambition whatsoever. All he wanted to do was learn. Teaching at Hogwarts provided him with a job that supported him while also allowing him to pursue what he loved, manipulating incantations and wand movements, in the hopes of creating a new spell.

'Professor Holt, there you are.' Sir Nicholas's appearance disrupted Derik's thoughts on the new development of a spell that transported sound. 'I was looking for you, there is a student wondering the corridors on the second floor. Normally I wouldn't bother you, but I don't seem to recognise this student and she is carrying an enormously large backpack.'

Derik swore silently. It must be that girl who Dumbledore found in the forest. He had thought that she was somewhat intelligent and brave from the way she had handled discovering magic, but now he thought differently. She must be very stupid to try and escaped into the Forbidden Forest again.

'Thank you Nicholas, I know who it is and I'll take her back to her rooms.' He set off at a brisk pace, heading for the second floor.

_M*F_

El was nearly at the stairs leading down to the foyer of the castle when she sensed someone walking up the opposite corridor towards her. She quickly ducked into a classroom, and waited until that someone had past, and turned the corner. She was out the door again and at the top of the stairs when she heard a voice float down from behind her, 'Professor, she's over here.'

El spun around in fright. She had forgotten the last time someone was able to sneak up on her. Upon seeing the speaker, however, she understood how she couldn't have known he was there.

The man was translucent. She could still seem him, an older man in tights and this huge big ruff around his neck, but she could also see through him. He didn't have any colour, but looked like someone out a black and white photo, with a pearly shine to him. Another thing that she noticed, was that he was hovering a foot off the ground.

'You there, what do you think you're doing?' A voice interrupted her amazement. Looking through the man, instead of at him, she could see Professor Holt. Automatically, she spun back around and bounded down the stairs three at a time. She had shoved the mystery of the translucent man into the back of her mind; after all, he was only one of a number of strange things that had happened to her tonight.

She was nearly at the great doors when she heard Holt yell something, and she was suddenly jerked to a stop. She couldn't move. No part of her body responded to her. She could feel the panic beginning to rise within her. She couldn't lift her leg to take another step, nor stretch out her arm to touch the handle of the door, nor even turn her head to look at the teacher who was striding up behind her.

'Now Miss…' Professor Holt paused, as if searching through his memory for her name. After coming up empty he continued, 'What do you think you were doing? I hope you weren't thinking of trying you luck by going back into the forest were you? Because…'

He was interrupted by the great doors suddenly opening revealing four very tired, but very happy boys. They too had stopped their quiet conversation upon seeing the opposite party. Spotting El, James and another handsome, dark hair boy, stepped protectively in front of a lankier boy who was sporting bruises and cuts. But El didn't notice this, she was very close now to having a full on panic attack. She couldn't move. She couldn't do anything. She was trapped within her own body! In an instant, this man had stripped her of the freedom of controlling her body! She was now at his mercy and anyone else's who walked by. She was so caught up in her own fears that she didn't notice when her breath started to come in shallow pants and tears leaked out of her eyes.

'What are you boys doing up this early?' Professor Holt said, recovering from his surprise. 'No, don't answer that. Just get Mr Lupin to the hospital wing, and then go off to your dormitory.'

'Umm, sir, are you going to let her go?' The James nodded at El, who now had a steady stream of tears trailing down her face.

Holt looked over at El, and remembered that he still had her paralysed. 'Oh, of course.' He waved a twig at her, and the muscles she had been straining to move for the last couple of minutes jerked into life again. She backpedalled wildly, slamming into the stone wall. She took in long draughts of air, her arms went around her stomach, as if she could hold in the panic and fear that had been flowing through her. Now that she could move again, she started to pull in her terror. She looked around, and for the first time noticed the boys. Embarrassment washed through her, as she realised that she was bawling her eyes out in front of five people, six if you counted the translucent man who was hovering above her head, looking down on her pityingly.

'Are you ok?' Asked James, as he stepped forward, to touch her arm comfortingly. Finally, her brain caught up with her, as she remembered the excuse she had come up with if she was found. She added sobs to her silent tears.

'No,' she gasped between sobs. 'I don't want to be here. I'm not supposed to be here! I'm not a witch, I don't have magic. I don't want to live in a castle with moving pictures. And I certainly don't want to turn into an animal!' She broke out crying again.

'Well, it's not required of you to become an animagus. The boys here only did it to keep Mr Lupin company.' Professor Holt replied calmly, as if there wasn't a crying teenage girl before him. He must have seen the four boys look of shock, as he added, 'Oh come now. I'm not stupid; anyone with half a brain could see what you've been up to the last couple of months. Frankly I'm surprised you didn't go to Professor McGonagall or myself, with our help you could have achieved it a lot faster.'

'You- you knew?' stuttered James.

'Of course I did. Now it really is late, and you should be off. I'll see that Miss…' Again he paused.

'Johnson?' said James helpfully, before remembering that he wasn't supposed to know who she was.

Holt just raised his eyebrow. 'Yes that was it. I'll see that Miss Johnson returns to her rooms and stays there. Now off to bed.'

The boys said goodnight, throwing a last curious look at El, who had quietened down to the occasional sniffle, and raced up the stairs. Professor took a step to follow, but stopped and frowned down at El, 'Do you remember where your rooms were?'

After seeing El shake her head, the translucent man piped in helpfully. 'They were on the third floor, north side, fourth door on the left.'

'Thank you Nicholas. Well then Miss Johnson, this way.' And off he strode, up the stairs. El had no choice but to follow. He didn't say anything when they reached her rooms; he just closed the door behind her. She heard him mutter something on the other side of the door, and when she tried the handle again she found that it was locked. Flopping down on the couch, she drearily thought about the coming two months.

_M*F_

Only a couple hours later, the sun well up in the sky, Dumbledore stood up at the end of the staff meeting. 'And now I need to raise a matter of importance. Last night, while I was wandering in the Forbidden Forest, I stumbled across a girl.' Derik turned his head from the window, finally something that concerned him. Dumbledore proceeded to tell the rest of the staff everything they had learnt last night. 'I, of course will teach her for two weeks, but I need volunteers for the other six weeks to teach Miss Johnson the basics of magic.' Minerva and Derik automatically agreed to spend two weeks with her, as it was expected on them as they were Heads of Houses.

'I of course would spend time teaching her, but I don't think Divination is exactly what you had in mind.' Vadoma Medina said.

'Of course Vadoma, that's fine.' Dumbledore replied. The entire staff then turned to look at Horace Slughorn.

'Oh all right, I'll spend a week with her. Mind you only a week, really Dumbledore I am a very busy man.' The Head of Slytherin said gruffly.

'Thanks you Horace. Now I would really like it if for the last week, she could learn about magical creatures and herbology.' Dumbledore looked at the teachers of Magical Creatures and Herbology, but they both shook their heads. They had already planned to be out of the country over the holidays.

Dumbledore sighed, as was about to ask someone else, when the herbology assistant, Pomona Sprout, piped up, 'I'd be happy to teach her about Herbology, and I know a bit about magical creatures.' Pomona had only graduated two years ago and had taken the Magical Creatures subject right up until seventh year, so she knew more than a bit.

'Why thank you Pomona,' Dumbledore smiled at the Herbology assistant. 'Well, now that that is settle, that is all, I think.' He said dismissing the staff. 'But if Mineva, Derik, Horace and Pomona would stay behind.' When everyone else had left, Dumbledore continued, 'I don't believe Miss Johnson has told us the truth about her situation. She seemed very eager not to go home, and I doubt there are many parents who would go on a two months holiday leaving their sixteen year old daughter by herself with no way of contacting them. I would like it if you tried to learn more about who she is. It is our duty to help our students, but we cannot help Miss Johnson if we don't know what is wrong.' They all nodded but Derik. While he understood that Dumbledore's motivation was good, he didn't like how the old man needed to know every detail about the lives of the people living in Hogwarts. Derik himself was a private man, and respected that people didn't want to share everything that went on in their lives to a complete stranger, so he knew he would treat the girl the same way he treats the other students and not go prying into her life.

'She tried to run away last night.' Derik interjected suddenly, 'Around dawn.'

'Oh dear,' Dumbledore said thoughtfully, 'this is another reason why we need to make her feel comfortable in the castle, so she doesn't try and enter the Forbidden Forest again.'

'Which is why I put a tracking spell on her.'

Minerva gasped, 'Derik you know that's illegal unless the Ministry has approved it. And their certainly not going to approve one on a teenage girl who has done nothing wrong.'

'Well then we'll just have to not tell them. Don't worry Minerva, I won't activate it unless she runs away, and I'll take it off when we think she's safe for the public.'

Minerva turned to the Headmaster, pleadingly. Dumbledore raised a patient hand, 'While I don't agree with Derik's method, we certainly need to take measures to ensure she doesn't endanger herself. And Derik is a person I trust to not abuse his powers in this matter. Now we must turn to the matter of who will teach Miss Johnson first.'

Derik tuned out as they discussed timetables and what to teach her. He mulled over his newest student. He agreed with Dumbledore when he said that she wasn't telling the truth. But it wasn't something like abusive parents as Dumbledore had implied, she looked strong and tough, not beaten. He was still deep in thought over the mystery of Elizabeth Johnson when the teachers finished up and left for breakfast.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Hey, I need a male Slytherin that would have been in the Marauders' year or higher and is not Snape or Malfoy. Does anyone know of one, or shall I make him up too?

Flynn


	5. History and Experiments

The pressure in her head steadily grew. It went from a tingle behind her eyes to the feeling of a balloon expanding in her brain. She knew what would happen and knew that it would only get worse. She tried to escape, tried to get free of this nightmare, but it never worked. It only felt like she was beating on the inside of her skin, trying to move but failing utterly. She was completely trapped within her own body.

There were figures in black moving in front of her, and then bright lights started to explode. She tensed, knowing what was going to happen, but still it took her by surprise each time in its intensity. Pain exploded inside her head, if she could move, she would have curled up in the fetal position and screamed. It felt like her brain had burst. Like it was a glass bottle that had shattered outwards, the shards falling like shrapnel around her. That's what her mind felt like, as if it had suddenly broken into a thousand pieces, and scattered in the wind.

El jerked upright, gun in hand with the safety off. She quickly scanned the bedroom in the light steaming in from the window. But nobody was around, there never was, it was only The Nightmare. She had always thought of it with capital letters, as it was the only dream that she could remember. She had it about twice a week, always reminding her of what she ran from.

Sighing, she flicked the safety back on and placed the gun under her pillow again. Normal the nightmare didn't change, but tonight it was different. Instead of being strapped to a chair, as she usually was, she was completely paralysed. Just like what Professor Holt had done to her earlier. _And just when I thought it couldn't get worse, another memory has scarred itself onto my conscious._

That was what scared her most, the knowledge that it wasn't just a dream, it was a memory. Her earliest memory was also her most frightening. The ones of where she was tortured and experimented on. She had no idea how young she was when it started, only that at the age of four or five Jay had rescued her. As a result she had no idea who her parent were, her age and birthday, even her really name, if she had ever had one, was unknown to her. El was just a nick name that Jay had given her because it was versatile, with El as a nick name she could be an Elizabeth, an Ella, an Eloise, she could be a Laura or Lily, she'd even been an Isabelle once.

As a girl, she had often grilled Jay about who she was, he had never hidden the fact that they weren't related, hell, he had always made certain that she realised that he didn't have to look after, but he had never been able to tell her anything else. He had only been able to retell the night he had rescued her.

It had been on dusk and he had been walking down the highway, hoping to find a place where he could camp for the night. As the sun finally left the sky, he suddenly remembered that there was a forest next to him and he could just camp there. When Jay always told the story he had stopped, and she could see him wondering how he hadn't thought of that earlier, before shaking his head to clear the thought away, and continuing. As he entered the forest, the first sign that he had that something was wrong, was the load crack that had echoed through the woods, making the ground shake and the birds burst into flight, leaving an eerier silence.

Jay quietly crept through the forest towards the sound, before he had gone barely a hundred metres he found a collection of cement buildings situated on the side of a hill. He could hear the sounds of fighting going on in an open space behind a thick wall further down the hill. What he did next continuously reminds El that he wasn't always a paranoid old man who used to run at the first sign of trouble. Because, instead of retreating quickly and quietly back to the road as the Jay she had known would have done, he had sprinted out of the cover of the trees, over to the wall of a building to peer through a barred window. Inside he saw chaos. People were running around madly, as papers and vials were being packed up, _by themselves._ Papers and objects were flying through the air, settling into open trunks and briefcases, which, when full, snapped closed and flew into people's hands.

But, despite this blatant disregard of the laws of physic's, this was not what Jay found himself looking at. He was staring in horror at about a dozen cages with a child in each, ranging from the ages of newborns to preteen. And they were all dead. All but one, he corrected himself as he saws pale checks with a bit of colour in them and wide eyes that blinked up at him. It was a girl, around the age of five, sitting in the cage right below the window. El wasn't sure what made Jay look around for a way inside; she wasn't quite sure if he knew himself. All that really mattered, she supposed, was that Jay found himself staring at a door that lead inside, to what he hoped was a hallway that ran next to the room and connected with the door he could see people rushing in and out through.

Though mainly now it was people going out, as they finished up packing and left for other areas of the complex. When there was only two people left in the room, and no one had entered or exited for a while, hopefully left the hallway clear, Jay gently opened the door, and closed it silently behind him. He was right in both assumptions that it was a hallway and that nobody was in sight. Halfway down the hallway though, he remembered that he had forgotten one important detail, the two men still in the room would have to come out through the hallway. So when the doorknob started to turn, Jay looked around in panic before spotting another door just up ahead and bolted to it and inside, before the other two men had entered the hall.

Jay wasn't quiet sure what he would have done if he had found himself in another room full of strange people, so he breathed a sigh of relief as he stared around at the mops, broom, buckets and other cleaning equipment that surrounded him in the tiny closet.

'What about the surviving girl?' Jay jumped in surprise, as voices began to come down the hallway.

'We don't have time to deal with her, she was a failure anyway.' A second voice replied.

'But…'

'What?' Interrupted the second voice again, 'You want to risk going back and killing her? They most likely won't look that hard, they'll probably just burn the buildings down. Those fools only seek to destroy all our hard labour on continuing Grindelwald's great work. There ….' The voices faded off, and were cut of completely with a slam of the outside door.

If Jay had any doubts about rescuing the girl, they were now firmly put to rest, there was no way he could walk away and leave her to die of painfully in a fire. So, slowly and quietly, in case someone else came down the corridor, he exited the broom closet and made his way to the now empty room. Inside he found it very different from what it had looked like just a few minutes ago. It had gone from total chaos to utter stillness. It had the looked of a new laboratory, and showed no signs that just moments before, it had been used for horrible experiments. Well, except for the cages.

As Jay hurried over to them, he saw that they were all empty now of the dead bodies. The girl's cage, as he should have expected, was locked. Looking around the room he couldn't see the keys hanging anywhere obvious. He looked back at the girl, he couldn't stay long looking for the keys, or risk getting caught himself. The girl looked back up at him, in her grey eyes he could see intelligence but no fear. He didn't know whether that was because of her young age, or because after what they had done to her, nothing could scare anymore.

The girl turned her head, and looked pointedly at the desk at the front of the room. 'Is that were the keys are?' Jay asked. She turned her hard grey eyes towards him again and slowly nodded. Sprinting over to the desk he pulled out draws and started sorting through them, which was pretty easy considering most of them were empty. Finding nothing he slammed them back in place. He couldn't waste any more time! A soft clinking of metal on metal made him pause and kneel down. Running his hand along the underside of the desk, he found a ring of keys hanging on a hook on the underside of the desk. Pulling them out he raised his eyebrows in surprise to find they were the older, larger kind that looked like they would be used in an old prison. Shaking off his surprise, he stood and quickly went back to the girl's cage and tried the keys until one of the worked.

He was just picking up the girl when there was a load bang outside the window. Peeking out he saw the two men from before fighting with another four men, but not fighting the usual way with either fists or guns. Instead they seemed to be throwing different coloured lights at each other. But Jay wasn't going to hang around and see who won, propping the girl on his hip he strode back to the hallway and headed in the opposite direction of the way he had come, he was not going to walk straight into a fight. He randomly picked a door and had his hand on the knob to open it when he felt a small hand tug on his shirt. As he looked down at the child, she shook her head, and pointed further down hall. He hesitated, before decided to trust her, he had no idea where to go so following her could not be any worse than wandering around aimlessly. Entering the room that she had pointed to, he found himself in a toilet block, thinking that it was a dead end, he turned around to go back out when the girl tugged on his shirt again. She pointed further down the room and he saw another door, which lead to another hallway.

And so he followed the girl's direction. She eventually led him to a final door that opened on to the outside world, right above the fight that he heard at the beginning. Down a steep slope of rocks he could see at least two dozen people going at each other with bursts of light. The whole scene, despite being utterly surreal, was beautiful in a deadly way, with the bright colours and sharp movements as the people below dodged lightning. Jay dragged his eyes from the battle and concentrated on the 50 metre gap that separated them from the forest. Hoping that no one would look up, he dashed from the cover of the building and disappeared into the woods, taking with him a little girl with an unusual gift.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: ** I didn't really like writing from Jay's POV, and you can probably tell because it's horrible, but I felt like I needed to explain a bit about her history, so here it is. Ummm, question for this chapter is: What do you think El's 'unusual gift' is? I'd like to hear what you think.


	6. Books and Visitors

There was a knock on the door of El's sitting room at around 8 o'clock. She was sitting on the window seat inbuilt into the thick wall of the castle, with her drawing pad and charcoal balanced on her lap. 'Come in,' she said, not looking up from putting the last touches on her drawing. It was of the view out her window, a grassy plane situated between a smooth lake and a dark forest. She had added a full moon, which reflected off the lake, and three animals, sprinting across the edge of the forest; a wolf, a stag, and a dog. She wanted to add in a rat, but it would have been too small to be noticed so she didn't bother. The scene was a dark and frightening one, with harsh blacks and unforgiving whites, reflecting her mood of last night.

The door opened silently and someone entered. She knew it was the headmaster, so she turned around to look at him. He smiled down at her kindly, 'I'm glad you're awake, I didn't think you would be after last night.' She shrugged, she could never get back to sleep after The Nightmare, but she wasn't going to tell the old man that.

Dumbledore set down a pile of books he had been carrying on the coffee table. 'I see that the house elves brought you breakfast.' He waved the stick he carried at her left over dishes and they disappeared. She shrugged again; a small bald creature with big ears had brought her a tray of food, so she supposed it must have been a house elf.

'I brought you a couple of books that I thought you might like to read. They contain some general information about the wizarding world.' Dumbledore again tried to start a conversation.

'Are you going to keep me here in this room?' demanded El suddenly.

'No, of course not. Professor Holt only locked the door for your own safety.' The Headmaster must have seen her speaking to him as an invitation to sit as he moved over to a couch. 'You are free to wander the castle and its grounds, though not the Forbidden Forest. But I would recommend staying here for today, it's a very small school and most students recognise each other, at least enough to realise you're not a student. While the teachers have been informed of your presence, the students have not, so staying in here would avoid you having to answer questions for the moment. I could, though, ask Misters Potter, Black, Lupin and Pettigrew, to come and visit you, if you wish. They are the four boys who you met in the forest.'

'Shouldn't they be in class?' El asked.

'No, as it is the last day before holidays, they would be entertaining themselves for the day, no doubt they are already looking for me to ask if they can see you.' Dumbledore chuckled quietly.

'Well if they do ask, please say that they can, I would like the company.' El would prefer any company other than old men with eyes that were much too sharp and piercing. The boys would be perfect to get information from without analysis her for it.

'I shall do that. I also should inform you that I will be teaching you for the first two weeks of the holidays, followed by Professor McGonagall, for two weeks. Professor Slughorn, can only be spared for a week, so Miss Sprout, the herbology assistant, shall then teach you for a week after Professor McGonagall, followed by Professor Slughorn. Professor Holt, will then take you for two weeks before taking you to home for a week. How does that sound?'

'Ok I guess,' El replied, trying to sound overwhelmed.

It must have worked because Dumbledore stood and said, 'Well I'll come back tomorrow morning and show you around the castle and we'll begin lessons. I'll see you then shall I?'

El thought it stupid that he posed it as a question, considering she didn't have a choice in the matter. She didn't vocalise this thought but merely nodded her head and said goodbye. When the door had shut, she got up and looked at the books that Dumbledore had brought. There were eight of them; _Hogwarts: A History_, _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_, _A Beginners' Guide to Transfiguration_, _One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi_, _Magical Drafts and Potions_, _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_, _Magical Theory_, and _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.

El sank down on the couch. It was the first time that it actually hit her that this was all real. The magic, the shape changing, the moving picture, the translucent people, the house elves. It was all real. Not a dream, not a hideous prank, not even a small community south of London. It was entire new world. El drew in a breath through her nose and let it out through her mouth. Ok, so she had plunged into a completely new world, her next step must be to learn as much as possible, and the easiest way available at the moment was to read. Looking at the books again, she picked up _Magical Theory_ and walked back over to the window seat again.

She had finished the introduction and had started on chapter 1 when four boys stopped at her door. She put the book down as the pounding on her door began and called for them to enter. James came first, followed by the handsome boy who had, last night, protected the lanky boy trailing after him. He obviously had had all his bruises and cuts healed, though he still looked pale and hollow, with dark cycles under his eyes, but El wasn't sure if that was because of their night time adventures or because he normally looked like that. Last came the rat boy, just as pudgy and short as she remembered from last night.

They stood there, looking at her, unsure of how to proceed. She wasn't going to help them out either, she was enjoying this too much, although none of her enjoyment showed on her face. Finally James spoke up with a 'Hi.'

'Hi,' returned El. After another awkward silence, she took pity on them and started things off with her bit of embarrassment. Looking at her feet, she let a blush creep over her face, 'Hey, I'm sorry about the cry fest last night. Really, I'm not usually like that, it just that it was so much to take in.' she shrugged and mumbled, 'still is a lot to take in.'

'That's ok. It must be really hard to accept magic if you haven't grown up with it.' James replied immediately. Another pregnant silence.

El sighed, she had to get things moving faster than this. 'Ok, I'm Elizabeth Johnson, but I prefer El. I'm 16 and apparently I'm a witch. Now your turn. Name, age and animal.'

The boys looked at each other, and then back at El, before James spoke, 'Ah, ok. I'm James Potter, age 15, and I was the stag.' He looked over at the handsome boy.

The boy smiled crookedly at her and winked, he was definitely a player. 'I'm Sirius Black, 15 too, and I was the dog.'

'Hey,' said the lanky boy, shyly glancing up at her before looking back down at his shoes. 'I'm Remus Lupin, I'm 15, and I was the … er, the wolf.' El caught his hesitation. She had not forgotten about the comments that had been made about him, by Professor Holt and even James, nor the fact that he had tried to attack her. But she left it for now and looked at the last boy.

'Peter Pettigrew, I'm 14, and I was the rat.'

El frowned in confusion, 'What was the Moony and Prongs thing last night? Nicknames?'

'Er, yeah.' James answered hesitantly, 'I'm Prongs, because I've got antlers, Sirius is Padfoot because he's… well… a dog. Peter is Wormtail as rats have thin tails, and Remus is Moony 'cause… er… 'cause he's a wolf, and their supposed to howl at the moon right?' James finished lamely.

After another awkward pause, El had had enough. There was obviously something about Remus that they weren't willing to share, but then they were acting awkward around her because she didn't know but expected her to guess what it was. So El decided to point out the big elephant in the room, figuratively speaking, 'Ok, I've had enough of this.' She turned to Remus and looked him straight in the eye, 'What's up?'

The four of them looked at her in surprise, before glancing at each other. Remus finally answered hesitantly, 'What do you mean, what's up?'

'I mean what's your deal. You're not an ani-whatever.'

'Animagus,' put in James helpfully.

'Yeah that. James admitted it last night. And Professor Holt mentioned something about the others needing to keep you company.' She decided not to bring up that he had tried to attack her, as she didn't want to guilt trip him, but have him tell her without fear of running screaming, because whatever he was, it was obviously something that most people were afraid of. 'And you guys are obviously not going to be comfortable around me until I know. So spit it out?'

'He doesn't have to tell you if he doesn't want to.' Sirius growled, moving to stand protectively in front of Remus. El also noticed that he had discreetly pulled out on of those sticks that everyone seemed to be carrying, and was clenching and unclenching his hand around it.

'Sirius,' James put his hand warningly on the other boys arm, 'We discussed this.' The two boys shared a long glance, before finally Sirius let out long breath and stood aside to lean against the wall near the door. El felt her chest constrict as her escape option was cut off, but she kept calm knowing that they were only trying to keep her there until they explained everything, and El had no intention of running from the room screaming. If she decided to run, she would think of a much better escape plan than that.

James turned back to her and ran his hands through his hair in a frustrated manor, 'Well… Remus here...'

El cut him off, 'No, Remus is going to explain it.' He obviously was ashamed of what he was, but El felt that he had to accept it, and the first way to do that was by explaining it himself.

Remus's eyes snapped up to her, but she wouldn't back down. 'Oh, ok. You see… I'm a, I'm a werewolf.' He said the last word in a hushed whisper, and immediately the tension in the room went up as everyone waited for her reaction.

'Ok.'

Remus's eyes snapped up to hers incredulously, 'Ok! That's all you say! Ok, when I tell you I turn into a monster once a month.'

'Well, so do most women.' She replied calmly, 'And you guys don't seem to hold it against us. At least you're kind enough to show physical signs that people need to back away slowly. So why would I hold it against you that you have a time of the month too.'

Remus blushed scarlet, and Sirius burst into laughter. James quickly followed suit, along with Peter, and it wasn't long before Remus was chuckling self-consciously too. El just smiled.

'No-one's ever put it quiet like that before.' Remus admitted when everyone had quietened down. El just shrugged.

'Well she's certainly blunt, I like her.' Announced Sirius, and if that was some sort of signal everyone sat down and got comfortable. 'Oh and sorry about that before,' he shrugged and smiled lazily at her, though she could see his eyes tighten in worry. He had a quick temper and he knew it. He also wasn't use to people forgiving him for it.

So El decided to laugh. 'Don't worry about it. You're a loyal friend, can't fault you for that.'

'So what's happening to you now? Dumbledore didn't tell us.' Remus was a lot more talkative when he wasn't trying to hide a secret from her, or maybe it was just because he wanted to distract her from Sirius's outburst.

'Well, apparently I'm going to stay here for the holidays with a couple of the Professors and they'll teach me about magic, and then next year they'll figure out what grade I should be in and I'll go from there. Actually, if you don't mind I would like to ask you a couple of questions, just about magic in general?'

'Sure,' James shrugged.

El sat up on her seat and looked at them intently, _finally some answers_. 'Ok what is that stick thing that everyone seems to have?'

James looked at her blankly, 'What stick?'

'Oh you mean our wands,' Remus interrupted as he pulled his and handed it to her. 'It was we use to channel the magic and direct it properly. We use words and movements of the wand to change what spells we cast.'

'Really?' Sirius interrupted, turning towards Remus, 'Is that what wands do?'

'Well what did you think they were for Sirius?' asked James exaggerated.

'I don't know,' he retorted, 'I just thought we waved them around, said some mumbo jumbo and stuff happened.'

'Mumbo jumbo?' El tried to steer them back on track, 'What you say isn't in English?'

'No, it's not in any language, incantations are just sounds put together to cast the spell, not specific words. But you also don't need to say the words to make the spell happen, you can just think them, but it's a lot harder than speaking. The don't teach it till fifth year.'

'We can?' Sirius asked astonished, 'How on earth don't I know things like this?'

El snorted, Remus shook his head and rolled his eyes. He was obviously the smart one of the group. El passed his wand back and asked, 'Can you show me something?'

'Sure.' He said something that El didn't understand and flicked his wand. A book on the coffee table began to rise. She just stared at it for a while, before moving over to kneel in front of it. She raised her hand and looked at Remus, asking for permission. He just raised his eyebrow and nodded. She noticed that they all were finding her reaction very amusing.

Slowly she waved her hand under the book, and meeting no resistance did the same above. After convincing herself that there was nothing holding the book up, she gently tapped it. It wobbled, like it was floating on water, before eventually stabilising again. She sat back on her heels, smiling at Remus and said, 'Cool.'

Sirius and James burst into laughter again, and Remus just smiled.

Ignoring those two, she asked Remus, 'What else can you do with magic.' Remus then proceeded to tell her about the subjects taught at Hogwarts. Then he picked up the book she was reading, _Magical Theory_, and started summarising the chapters for her, which he said was all she really needed to know. James and Sirius had stopped laughing by this time, and James had turned to studying El. El hated being watched and studied, but she didn't bring it up, and make a big deal out of it. Sirius, meanwhile, didn't have the patience or the inclination to examine her. His eyes wandered around the room, bored, before finally landing on El's drawing pad on the coffee table. Picking it up, he began to flip through it.

He whistled in appreciation, 'You're not too bad at this.' He said, holding up her sketch pad. James moved over to look on with him.

El shrugged, 'I sell a couple of them for pocket money, and I also do quick profiles too. I can do you for fifteen pounds if you want.'

'How much is fifteen pounds?' asked Sirius blankly.

El looked at him in confusion, and Remus explained, 'We have a different currency system than Muggles.' And off he went again explaining, this time, their money system.

Sirius and James continued to slowly flick through her sketch book. The stopped and looked guiltily at each other, though, when they reached her last drawing. 'We must have really scared you last night?' James interrupted, holding up her last drawing.

Remus cut off abruptly, glanced at the drawing, and then quickly looked at his feet. 'I'm really sorry about attacking you last night.' He mumbled, scooting his armchair away from her.

El snorted, 'To be honest, you weren't the scariest thing about last night, James was. Animals attacking me I can handle, people turning _into_ animals, not so much.'

'Huh,' James said, releasing the tension that had built in the room again, 'I'm more scary than Moony during his time of the month.'

'Shut up Prongs,' Remus muttered, embarrassed, while give him a gentle punch in the shoulder.

Sirius and James were still laughing when there was a loud pop, and a creature that Dumbledore had called a house elf, appeared bearing a tray of food. 'Well, I think we should leave you to eat. Do you mind if we come back after lunch?' Remus asked, stand up.

'That would be great. Sitting here by myself all afternoon would just kill me.' El smiled. She was beginning to like these boys and not just for how easily they gave her the information she need, but for the way they seemed to accept her and made her feel part of the group. She had never had any friends before, her lifestyle never gave her the option of staying in one place long enough to make friends, and she knew that she would never become friends with these boys as she didn't plan on being around next year, but it was nice to know that, if she had the time, she would be able to befriend them.

The boys stood up, said their goodbyes and promises to return after lunch, and left. Leaving El to dream over the life she could have if she stayed.

_M*F_

James banged on the door to El's room, and quickly heard a 'Come in,' in reply. The boys all piled into the room again and James saw that El had barely moved, as she was sitting on the window seat immersed in what looked like _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ judging by the front cover.

'What are you reading about?' queried Remus as he sat down in the armchair closest to El.

'Werewolves,' answered El distractedly. She froze just after she said it though, as if remembering who she was talking to. 'Sorry, I wanted to know more about it but didn't want to ask you and make you uncomfortable.' El apologised.

'No it's ok, ask any question you want to?' Remus replied uncomfortable, as James knew he would, but it was better that they give her the answers she wants then find them in a book which wouldn't soften the facts like they would.

'Ok if you're sure,' El hesitated, but continued when Remus nodded, 'I know this might be a stupid question, but please remember I know nothing ok? Lycanthropy is a disease right, I mean you were bitten by another werewolf not born one were you?'

James was glad to see that Remus laughed at the question, 'No I was bitten.' And so it continued, much as it had during the morning, where El would ask questions and Remus would answer. James was surprised to find that most of El's questions were clinical, about lycanthropy as a disease rather than asking for the gory details of Remus's experiences. Gradually Remus relaxed, and started calmly discussing his 'furry little problem' as he did with no one other than the three of them.

They had started to move on to vampires when Sirius had had enough, 'Come on Remus, stop hogging the pretty lady.' James watched in amusement as Remus blushed and El just raised an eyebrow at Sirius cheeky grin, 'She can learn all that boring stuff from books. I've got something to teach her that can't be learned from books. Exploding snap.' Sirius proudly held up a pack of cards.

'What's exploding snap?' asked El bemused.

'It's a card game. Come on, I'll teach you.' And so the rest of the afternoon was taken up with loud games of exploding snap. James found that El was able to pick up the rules fairly quickly, much to Sirius's dismay. Sirius thoroughly enjoyed teaching her, especially considering that involved sitting so close they were practically on top of each other, and whispering instructions in her ear. James's respect for El went up a notch when she didn't melt into a blushing, giggling mess as most girls did. The only reaction she had, that James could see, to Sirius turning on the charms for her, was a rising of an eyebrow when he took things too far, like put a hand high up on her thigh. Which, much to James's delight, Sirius blushed, quickly mumbled something and removed the hand.

It was only when a house elf brought a tray of dinner for El, did anyone realise how late it had gotten.

'Will you come back after dinner?' asked El as they packed up the game.

'Yeah, of course.' Sirius agreed readily.

'What about the curfew, Sirius?' Reminded Remus.

'And I've still got to pack,' Peter piped in.

'So that looks like it'll be a no, sorry El.' James summarised regretfully. 'And we won't be able to visit tomorrow morning either. It's pretty much eat breakfast and hop on the train.'

'That's ok, today's been really fun, thanks guys. So I'll see you next year then.'

They all said there good byes and left the room. They walked silently down the hall, each thinking about the girl back in the room. Finally it was Peter who broke the silence, 'I like her.'

'Yes, I do too,' added Remus, 'I hope she gets put in Gryffindor.'

'Nah, she's a Ravenclaw to be sure, you saw the way she ate up all that info you were feeding her.' Retorted Sirius, making Remus blush.

'I don't know, Padfoot.' James interjected, 'You didn't see her in the forest, she was real brave then.'

'Good evening boys, how's your last day at Hogwarts been?' Dumbledore's voice came from behind them, the spun around to find the Headmaster smiling down at them.

'Good thanks sir,' recovered Remus, 'We've spent most of the day with El.'

'Ah yes, and what do you think of her? How do you think she is taking the existence of magic?'

'Pretty well, I suppose.' James answered, 'She's really curious about it, though, kept asking Remus a lot of questions.'

'Has she said why she was in the forest last night? Or where her family is?'

'Well she said she was camping, but other than that, we didn't really ask about her life. She seemed more interesting in magic.' Guilt past through James as he realised how little they bothered to ask about her. Luckily he was saved from thinking about it too much by Peter's stomach, which at that moment, did a very loud growl.

'Well, I better not keep you boys from dinner too much longer. Have a nice holiday.'

'You too Professor,' the boys echoed, and then ran to the Great Hall and food.

_M*F_

Later that night, while getting ready for bed, El thought about the day to come. Tomorrow would either be very exiting if she did indeed have magic as Professor Dumbledore claimed, or very dangerous if she didn't, as Dumbledore would have to decided what to do with her. Climbing into bed, El decided that she would just have to be wary and make the best of the situation. Her last thought before she fell asleep was that she hoped it would be that easy.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Hey, I'm sorry about the books Dumbledore gave her. I know I took them straight from Harry's first year booklist and that they probably weren't around in the Marauder's time, but I really couldn't be bothered thinking of book titles, so I cheated. I'm sorry. Also I know that Peter didn't really do much in this scene, the problem is I just don't know what he would do, I can't really get it into my head what a Peter that James, Sirius and Remus were friends with would be like. So this is the question for this chapter, what would the personality of a good Peter be like?

PS I hate out-of-characterness, so if I write something that you don't think the characters would do, please tell me and I see if I can change it. Thanks

Flynn


	7. Lessons and Wands

The next morning, after breakfast, Dumbledore began the day with a tour of the castle. He only showed El the important areas, like the Great Hall, the Library, some classrooms, the stairs leading down the dudgeons and the potion rooms, the entry hall and the grounds, including the Quidditch pitch and the greenhouses. All throughout the tour, El peppered the Headmaster with questions, which he answered patiently, no matter how stupid they must have seemed to someone who had grown up with magic.

Soon they found themselves back in the entry hall. 'Well, that was just some of the castle and its grounds.' Dumbledore explained, as he led them back up inside Hogwarts. 'Unfortunately we don't time to explore all of it, as I've made an appointment to see Mr Ollivanders, the wand maker, about getting you a wand. We'll go up to my office and floo to his shop in Diagon Alley.'

'Sir, I don't have money to buy a wand, yet alone any textbooks or uniforms I'll need.' That wasn't precisely true, she had about £300 in the bottom of her pack, but, as Dumbledore would question why some who was supposed to just go camping had so much money on them, she wasn't going to tell him that.

'Oh, that's fine. We won't worry about textbooks and robes till the beginning of next year when were sure what year you'll be in. As for your wand, I'll pay for it now, and then we can sort something out with your parents when they get back from the trip.'

At this comment, Dumbledore gave her a piercing look, but she just nodded and smiled, 'Thanks.' They were making their way up the stairs behind the eagle when El remembered something, 'Sir, what's floo?'

'It's a method of travel that the wizarding world uses,' Dumbledore answered, stepping off the stairs and opening the door to his office. 'What you have to do is grab a handful of some floo powered and throw it in a fireplace. When the fire turns green, you step in, and don't worry it won't burn you, and say very clearly the place you want to go, which in our case is Ollivanders.' He stepped over to his fireplace, which was very big, big enough to easily stand in, and took down from the mantel piece a jar containing a sort of green powered. Taking a handful of the powered he continued, 'I'll go first to show you how to do it, but if you still want some more help, just wait awhile and I'll come back, ok?'

El nodded and watch how the headmaster threw his handful of floo powering into the fire place then stepped in and said 'Ollivanders' and disappeared. El waited for the flames to turn red again, and then grabbed her own handful of the powered and tossed it into the fire. Gingerly, she stuck her hand into the green flames to make sure it wouldn't burn. To her surprise she couldn't feel any heat at all, only a vague tickling feeling. Quickly stepping fully into the fire, lest the flames turn back to red while she was still in there, she said loudly and clearly, and feeling like a fool, 'Ollivanders'.

Suddenly she was plummeting through a tight tunnel system at enormously high speeds. She tucked her arms to her side and kept her legs straight and together in case she hit the side of the walls. But she needn't have worried because before long, she was suddenly being thrust forward into a room. Catching her balance with a couple of steps, she looked around to find Professor Dumbledore smiling at her.

'Well done, Miss Johnson, not many people can stay on their feet the first time they use the floo network. You are now standing in Ollivanders Wand Shop at Diagon Alley, and here comes the owner Mr Ollivander.' El did a quick glance around the room and found herself in a sort of workshop, with jars of strange things lining the walls and stacks of wooden staves in one corner. On the work bench there were different kinds of saws and knives, with wood shavings all over the floor. The man who came in through the door would have been around late thirties. He had a kind, but wise face, as well as intelligent eyes that seemed to see straight through her, and unlike Dumbledore, accepted her for what she was and did not try to dig deeper.

'Hello, Albus, you're earlier than I expect, how are you?'

'Hello Garrick, I am very well thank you. This is Elizabeth Johnson, the student I was telling you about, Elizabeth this is Mr Ollivanders. Elizabeth here needs a wand, Garrick.'

'Of course she does, here, come out to the front of the shop and I'll grab a selection.' He exited back through the door and Dumbledore and El followed him. They emerged in what El supposed must have been a large room, but she couldn't be sure as it was filled with shelves reaching from floor to ceiling and not half a meter a part. These shelves where crammed with small, long boxes; some of them covered in dust as if they had not been touched for decades.

Mr Ollivander had disappeared down one of the corridors while Dumbledore lead her further into the room until they emerged on the other side. There was about two meters of clear spaces, separated from the area of shelves by a counter. Moving over to the other side of the counter, El saw that they were now in the front of the shop, with windows looking out onto what must be Diagon Alley. She didn't get much time to examine the world outside the window, as Mr Ollivander soon came back carrying a stack of the small, long boxes.

Setting them down of the counter, he opened one up revealing a wand. 'Here, try this one,' Mr Ollivander said handing it to her, 'Just give it a wave.' Taking the wand gingerly in her hand, she gave it a little wave. El jumped when flames started spewing from the end of the wand, and didn't stop until she had dropped it, which, she admitted wasn't long after they started. She looked at the two men in shock, hoping they could explain what just happened.

'Wands can sometimes react violently when being tested out.' Dumbledore explained calmly as he picked up the wand from the floor and handed it to Mr Ollivander.

'And a reaction like that says that that is not a suitable wand for you.' Said the equally calm Mr Ollivander, placing the wand back in its box and handing El another one. And she tried wand after wand, whose reaction differed from turning so hot in her hand that it burnt, to gently levitating the small fish bowl on the counter before dropping it suddenly causing it to smash. At each failure, Mr Ollivander calmly took the offending wand back and handed her another one.

After about a dozen wands, Mr Ollivander finally handed her one that felt right. The moment her fingers wrapped around the wood, she felt warmth slowly creep up her arm, not the sudden heat that had burnt her before, but a pleasant one of holding frozen fingers in front of the fire. When she gave it a small wave, some papers on the counter jumped to life and quickly folded themselves into paper planes before they began to fly above her head.

El let out a surprised laugh, before turning to Mr Ollivander, 'Is this the right wand?' she enquired.

'Yes, I believe it is,' he replied, giving her a searching look, 'fourteen and a half inches of blackthorn wood with a dragon heart-string, very well suited to both defensive and offensive spells.'

El spared a glance at the wand maker, but left it to later to think through the meaning of that comment. Instead she stroked the silky smooth wood, as she turned it over in her hands examining every inch of her new wand.

Dumbledore handed over a pouch to Mr Ollivander that El assumed was payment for her wand. 'Well, Garrick, we'd best be off now, if you wouldn't mind us using your fireplace again?'

'No, of course Albus. It's been a pleasure to see you again, old friend. The office is back this way.'

They made their way back through a corridor of wands to the office, where Mr Ollivander held out a small bucket of the same kind of powered that Dumbledore had. 'Say "Headmaster's Office" this time,' explained Dumbledore, and El tossed a handful of the powered into the fire, stepped in and said her destination, and then quickly found herself stepping out of the fireplace in Dumbledore's office with much more grace than she had the first time round.

It was a couple of minutes later when Dumbledore stepped out and brushed himself off. 'Well, now that you have your wand, why don't we start lesson.' He said, gesturing to the door. El nodded; there was no time like today to prove that she didn't have the kind of magic that Dumbledore expected her to have, although her confidence that she didn't have magic had decreased significantly after what had happened in the wand makers shop.

Dumbledore led her through the castle to one of the classrooms, where he demonstrated the first spell that is taught to the first years, the levitation spell. Next it was her turn. Her first couple tries were, even she could admit it, half hearted. So it was only when Dumbledore pointed out that if she didn't have magic, none of the wands would have reacted to her, did she finally give it a proper attempt, and to her surprise, the feather she was practising on, moved. Sure it didn't exactly rise up like Dumbledore's did, but it rocked and it was a start. After a couple more tries, she was able to lift the feather and keep it steady, and with a bit more effort she got the chair floating as well.

'Well done Elizabeth, well done.' Dumbledore congratulated her, surprised. 'It takes some first years a week to master that spell.'

'Yeah, but their eleven, I'm five years older.'

'Still it can take a while to get use to magic, you are doing very well. But why don't we take a break and have some lunch.' After getting her agreement, Dumbledore lead El to the kitchen where they were swamped by house elves. During the afternoon, El practise more spells out of _The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)_, before they had dinner and El retired to her rooms to practise the spells she had learnt that day.

The next two weeks flew by, El learnt charms in the morning and transfiguration in the afternoon, at nights she practised spells and read through the textbooks. So by the time Professor McGonagall arrived, Dumbledore said that she had the ability, if not the knowledge, in both charms and transfiguration of a second year. Nothing much changed during the following two weeks with Professor McGonagall teaching except they ate in the Great Hall, and by the end of it McGonagall said she would be able to graduate third year transfiguration and charms, but only just.

The week with Pomona, as the herbology assistant insisted being called, was by far the most relaxed. They spent the mornings looking after the plants in the greenhouses, with Pomona casually chatting about each plant that they worked on, and the afternoon either in the library talking about the different animals, or walking the edge of the Forbidden Forest looking for the magical creatures. El never really felt like a student with Pomona, but rather as if they were two friends causally talking. So it surprised El, at night when she was reading through the textbooks, how much she did actually learn.

Her next week with Professor Slughorn was vastly different. Not only did she not really enjoy the subject of potions, as she would never have the time or the ingredients necessary to brew a potion in the outside world, she disliked the Professor himself, as he was constantly talking about things that did not relate to the subject at all. So she was very glad when the week was over and she moved on to learning Defence Against the Dark Arts.

The two weeks with Professor Holt were very different than any other lessons she had had up till then, and by far the most enjoyable. After the first two days of lessons, Professor Holt announced that she was proficient enough at a couple simple blocking spells that she could start putting them into practise. Which she soon found out, was not restricted to their lesson times. Walking down the corridors of Hogwarts became a hazardous affair as attacks could come at anytime. One morning, as she was getting out of bed, she stepped into a magical quicksand, she had no idea how Holt had gotten it into her bedroom, but she didn't have long to consider it as she was sinking fast, and only just managed to grab her wand before her hips went under. Eating also became dangerous after her lesson in detecting poisons. Holt almost got her once when he put the poison on her fork, but by that time she had learnt his tell when something was up.

Overall, her days still contained structure though. The first week she learnt about blocking spells and counter curses, and obviously the curses and spells that they were to block, while the second week consisted of basic healing spells and more complex counter curses. Her nights now consisted of writing essays on how to detect, avoid and defeat different dark animals, while occasionally they had practical lessons in the afternoon on fighting a couple of the animals.

The two weeks with Professor Holt were by far the most enjoyable, while learning magic well and good, it was the thrill of dodging attacks and the adrenaline of not knowing when the next one was going to occur, that El really loved. So she found herself almost disappointed when the two weeks were over and she was supposed to go home.

On her last night at Hogwarts, she had finished putting he stuff away in her pack, before crawling into bed. As she was huddling down in the covers a strange thought crossed her mind, if she didn't put the plan that she had thought up over the last eight weeks into action, if she just explained her situation, she would be able to stay and continue learning magic and the fun she'd been having the last two weeks won't have to end. She quickly dismissed the fanciful thought and rolled over and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Question for this chapter is about Boggarts, what do you think it would appear as if your fear wasn't an object or something physical, but rather a feeling. For example, El's greatest fear would be to have no control of her life, while mine is uncertainty. Would a Bogart for El turn into a cage, as a representation of her fear, like Boggarts turned into Dementors for Harry as a representation of his fear of fear. But even a cage would not portray the full fear that El has being out of control. So then does the Boggart also induces the feeling that they fear, but with Lupin it turned into full moon but without any of the side effects a full moon would have for him, and really it would be the side effects of turning into a werewolf that he would fear, not the moon itself. So how on earth would a Boggart truly represent the fear of being out of control or uncertainty?

Flynn


	8. Hugs and Hospitals

El looked out the cab window and watched as the rows of houses flew by. Professor Holt, who was sitting next to her reading an ominous-looking textbook, was complete unaware of how nervous she was. Of course she had schooled her face and body to show boredom, so it wasn't really his fault.

El had planned her escape meticulously. She had convinced Holt to allow her some time with her 'parents' before telling them about her being a witch. She would have preferred a whole day, but Holt 'wanted to get the whole thing over and done with' as he put it, so he insisted that it be the same day. Therefore, El only had a four hour head start before the Professor would realise that she wasn't in some suburban house. It was a little less than she was comfortable with, but she reminded herself that as soon as she was on a bus she could disappear in London, and he would have no way of finding her.

So El settled back into the seat of the cab and looked around as the driver slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road.

_M*F_

'That'll be twenty-one pounds thanks.'

Derik started as the cabby shifted to look at him expectantly. 'Oh, money,' he remembered, and started fishing in his wallet for the right amount of the muggle currency. By the time he had handed the right amount over, El had already pulled her monster-of-a-bag out of the car and was waiting on the curb.

'What are you doing?' demanded El, as he got out of the cab too.

'Making sure you go home?' He still had his suspicions about her. Something didn't seem right, and the fact that she was nervous and trying to hide it didn't help her cause. _She might just be nervous of telling her family that she had magic_, he allowed optimistically, but deep down he knew that wasn't it.

'My house is over there,' she gestured further down and across the street, 'what could possible happen to me between here and there? Get kidnapped? And besides,' she added, 'how are you going to get from here to … wherever you're going?'

'I'll apparate. Now shouldn't you be going.' He stared back at her, unimpressed, as she glared at him. She sighed exasperatedly and hoisted her bag onto her shoulder and crossed the street. Derik watched her carefully as she walked down the street and turned into a driveway two houses down. Some small, untrusting part of him still expected her to do something fool hardy, like suddenly taking off down the street. But he quickly dismissed that part of him, as he watch El drop her bag at her feet and knock on the front door. When a women answered the door and they spent a couple of seconds talking, he began to get worried again, but he gently breathed out a sigh when they finally embraced each other.

Derik turned away, and prepared to apparate back to Hogwarts, his mind already turning back to a recent article in the _Spellcrafts Journal_ about the link between magically enhanced crystals and farseeing.

_M*F_

El almost breathed a sigh of relief when Professor Holt disaparated away. Almost, but not quite. Releasing the strange women, she put on a sweet smile and made her voice go innocent and quiet, 'Thank you so much, my friends won't believe I actually did the dare. I'm not normally this brave.'

'Oh it's quite alright dear,' the lady chuckled merrily, 'The things I used to get up to when I was your age,' she laughed to herself again.

'Well, I best be off then. Ummm, would you be able to point me in the direction of the nearest bus station?'

'Of course dear, it's down this road and up the next street. Have a nice day.' And with that she shut the door.

El did breath a sigh of relief now. She was free! Finally, after nearly two months, she was out from underneath the watchful eyes of magical teachers. The first two weeks with Professor Dumbledore had been a nightmare! Making up different anecdotes about her life while trying to keep her story straight in her head, while avoiding questions she couldn't answer. Every time those piercing blue eyes fell upon her, she felt as if he could see right through her lies and that he was only humouring her by not confronting her. Damn, that twinkle could be so patronizing! To be free of his, and all the other teachers, prying questions made her just want to run for joy.

But she couldn't celebrate yet, she shook off her joy and got her head firmly planted in the here and now. She had the next three days to get through first. She had decided to lay low in London for three days, hoping that by that time they would have stopped monitoring the major train and bus stations, so she would be able to safely get out of London without being recognised. In the mean time she would be constantly moving around the more crowded areas on London, only settling down at night to sleep.

Picking up her pack, El almost stumbled for the third time today. She couldn't believe how unfit she had gotten just from not doing her usual exercise for a couple of weeks. Heading off in the direction of the bus stop, she made a mental note never to let herself forget to exercise for so long again. Not being fit and able to carry her own pack is very dangerous in the life she leads.

But no matter how dangerous her life was, she had found over the last two months that she had missed it. She missed the adrenaline, missed the running, missed being able to be whoever she wanted the be, go where ever she wanted to go. She missed the freedom.

Reaching the bus stop, she shook her head to stop her self-examination. Well, she was free now and she had to keep it that way. Sitting on the bench with her pack between her knees she pulled out a large shoulder bag. When she had stumbled across a spell to enlarge the inside of a bag, and another one to reduce the weight of objects, she had spent weeks perfecting it so that not only her entire pack fit in the hand bag, but also the textbooks that she had 'borrowed'.

After carefully packing everything away, El was content to sit a wait for the bus. As soon as she hopped on, she could merge into the crowded city of London and disappear from the magical community forever.

_M*F_

Four and a half hours later, Derik Holt apparated back onto the same spot in which he left earlier. He was late he knew, but he doubted anyone would mind, and if they did, well, he didn't really care.

He made his way across the street, and over to the house he had seen El enter into. But as he walked down the driveway, he noticed a few things that didn't quite fit the girl's story. There was a child's car seat in the minivan that was parked in the driveway and toy dinosaurs spread out on the lawn. Not exactly consistent with El being an only child. Apprehension began to grow in Derik, as he knocked on the door, and his misgiving that El did not live here was confirmed when the women he had seen earlier hugging El, appear with a baby on her hip.

'Hello, can I help you?'

'Yes actually, does an Elizabeth Johnson live here?'

'No I'm sorry, you must have the wrong address.'

_Yes, that's what the problem is, just a small matter of the wrong address._ Derik thought sarcastically. 'That girl who came to your door earlier today, the one who hugged you, could tell me which way she went?'

'She said she was going to the bus station,' the lady answered hesitantly, 'down the street and up the next one. Why?'

'Thank you,' Derik said, not bothering to answer her question. Instead he just turned away and began walking down the street towards the bus station. He would be lying to say that he was surprised that El had run away. No, what surprised him was how stupid he had been in making her escape so easy, he should have insisted on meeting her parents, which he was beginning to very much doubt kept in contact with El at all, straight away. Well, at least he had the forethought to bring a map of London and the button in which he had magiked El's tracking spell on to.

Reaching the empty bus station, Derik spread the map out on the ground. Then, pulling out the button, he placed it on the centre of the map and activated the tracking spell with a flick of his wand. The button immediately flew over the paper and jerked to a stop, right over a muggle hospital. Derik sighed, well at least if she was injured she wouldn't be able to run away, and it was unlikely that she had done any damage that a short trip to St Mungo's couldn't fix. He quickly pocketed the button and folded the map up, before apparating in front of the doors of the hospital.

Striding through the front doors, ignoring the receptionist polite 'good afternoon', he made his way down a corridor until he was out of her sight. Pulling out the button again and levitating it above his palm, Derik reactivated the tracking spell again. Immediately the button began to strain up and to the left of the spot he had levitated it. It was a much less precise way of tracking, but without a 3D map of the hospital, it was the only way. And besides, if El was really injured it wasn't as if he had to rush. So Derik casually made his way over to the stair and began to climb.

_M*F_

'…and that makes it go so much faster, it's like flying down the road now, it's so awesome…'

El had stopped listening to the boy sitting across from her in the hospital cafeteria, awhile ago. Now, she was just concentrating on downing the burger, chips and drink as fast as she could to get away from his incessant talking. The reason she had decided to eat at a hospital cafeteria instead of a shopping mall food court, was to avoid boys trying to hit on her. Normally, people respected that hospital cafeterias were not the place to pick up chicks at, but the boy, who was clearly trying to impress her with his 'awesome' car, had apparently missed that memo. She would never have been interested in him anyway, just from the amount of hair product that was needed to gel that mop of hair of his into his gravity defying style was enough to put her off. That fact that he was here trying to pick her up while his mother was going into heart surgery should have turned any girl away, but she knew how shallow her sex could be.

'Shit!'

El jumped up, cutting the boy off suddenly. _How the HELL had he found me so fast!_ Because against all odds, Proffosor Derik Holt of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was here, in this hospital.

She swung her shoulder bag up onto her shoulder, and stormed out of the cafeteria, just barely managing to keep herself from breaking into a run that would have attracted far too much attention. _And I _don't_ need more attention. What I need, is to think and get the hell out of here. _But her mind refused to think straight, it was just whirling around of the impossible detail that Professor Holt had managed to track her from that nondescript, suburban bus station to this hospital in a mere half an hour.

She jabbed at the up button on the elevators with more force than necessary. But, after pausing for a whole half a second, gave up waiting for it and pushed open the door to the stair well. Holt was a couple of floors below her, and her stunned brain finally managed to process that up would be the best direction, at least until she could reach an exit without being spotted.

Some days she hated what the experiments had done to her, how they had made her different from everyone else. But there were days like this one when she thanked whatever god might be out there for it. She would never survive if she weren't a clairvoyant.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Da da! I wasn't planning on revealing that she was a clairvoyant so early, and I may actually regret this, but there was no way that I could think of writing how she knew that Holt was at the hospital without it being obvious, or totally confusing and lame. So question for this chapter: Should El tell Professor Dumbledore and/or Holt that she's a clairvoyant or keep quiet as long as possible?


	9. Chaos and Clairvoyants

_Some days she hated what the experiments had done to her, how they had made her different from everyone else. But there were days like this one when she thanked whatever god might be out there for it. She would never have survived if she wasn't a clairvoyant._

_M*F_

Well, at least 'clairvoyant' was the closest term she could find to describe what she could do. The easiest way she could describe what she could do was like she could 'see' everything in every direction, with line-of-sight being no obstacle, and what she could see with her eyes was only a small section of her entire vision. What she saw with her mind, though, was only the outline of objects in a colour that the human eye couldn't detect, and it was only with the sight of her eyes that she saw the colour and texture of the objects.

Her 'gift' though, had limits. The further things were from her the bigger they had to be for her to distinguish what they were. For example, for about three metres in every direction around her, she could sense everything, a coin in a sofa, a pen behind a desk, each eyelash, and every page of a book. The further away things got from her, however, the more detail she lost, individual pages became just solid books, pens disappeared, cushions merged in with couches, beds because indistinguishable from desks, people got lost in a crowd. Until, about 100 metres away, where she could only sense the outer walls of buildings, before even that disappeared.

Living creatures, however, differed slightly from objects. Dead things existed in her mind in that unknown colour, but animals tended to glow with a recognisable colour. People, however, glowed with more than one colour. For example, Holt, who was currently climbing the staircase on the other side of the building, two floors below her, was a whirl of burnt orange and earthy brown.

Sensing him draw nearer to her, brought her out of contemplating her 'gift'. How he had found her! Her feet were taking stairs two at a time as her mind spun. How on earth had he managed to figure out that she was here, out of all of London, here in a hospital? Did he have … _Stupid! It's so obvious! I even thought about it back at that school. He's got a tracker on me, of course!_

El had no idea how the possibility that she was bugged could have escaped her! Whether by some technology or by magic, it didn't matter. All that mattered was getting it off of her. She calmed herself down so she could think of a plan of how to lose it. If it was electronic, then she would either have to search all her things, or dump them, which she wasn't keen on, but would do if necessary. If it was magical then she had a problem. Despite all her reading over the last two months, she had come across no mention of a tracking spell. Not that she had been looking for one, though, so that didn't mean one didn't exist.

The first question she needed answered was how good it was. Did it just lead him to the building or could he track her inside of it as well. She stopped in the stair well and caught her breath as she waited unit Holt reached the same floor in the opposite stair well. Sure enough, when he reached her floor, he took two steps up the next stair case, before pausing and going back down, and exiting the stair well. At first El was confused when he entered and quickly left a couple of room as he made his way towards her. Then she realised it was because he didn't know where she was, only the direction she was in. It was a small blessing but one she intended to take full advantage of.

Moving quickly back down the stair well to the floor below, she searched for a suitable exit. She was going to try and avoid the normal means of exiting the building in the hope that taking an more creative method would confuse Holt enough to give her a head start. A quicks scan of the floor with her gift showed her a fire ladder outside a window, but there were too many people around for her to get out the window without attracting attention. _Damn it! Looks like I'm going to have to use the doors._ But she had already taken too long. Holt had realised she wasn't on the floor above and he had quickly moved back down the stairs again. Just as she turned back to race down her stairwell to the ground floor, the door of the opposite stair well opened, and they locked eyes.

El froze, like a deer in the headlights, as Holt frowned across the crowded hallway at her. He didn't look particularly angry, just annoyed, like her escape attempt had merely delayed his afternoon plans. Nor did he seem to be in a hurry to catch her as he strolled down the hallway towards her.

Towards her! Holt moving closer to her finally brought her out of her shock, and she whirled around toward the stairwell. Damn it, she was getting slow. While he had only taken two steps, that would have been enough time for him to pull out a gun and shoot at her, if he had one. Pushing the self-rebuke away, she concentrated on flying down the two flights of stairs, as she could hear Holt running after her.

Bursting out of the stair case, she paid no attention to the people or the shouting around her, and concentrated only on the door a couple of metres ahead. At least until she realised that the shouting was her name, seconds before a hand clamped on her arm and spun her around, directly into a person she had hoped she would never have to see again.

_M*F_

Holt caught the stairwell door, just as it was about to swing shut. Just ahead he could see El barrelling between the crowds towards the exit. What was supposed to be a quick and simple job of explaining magic to muggles had quickly turned into a long and arduous hunt of an imprudent teenage girl. And frankly, Derik was getting annoyed.

Derik noticed he wasn't the only person to be watching El, at this point. Drawn by the chaos she caused in the hall, a man sitting in the waiting area by the entrance stared at her in shock as she dashed towards him.

'Eloise Brewer!' the man exclaimed standing up. Deciding that this man was not going to improve the situation, Derik summoned another burst of energy, and tried to catch up to El.

'Ellia Andrews!' the man yelled out another name, but El paid him no attention. Just as she ran past him, his arm shot out and grabbed her arm, spinning her into him. Her sudden change in momentum caused her to crash into him, sprawling them both on the floor, but not before Derik saw a look of horror cross over her face.

When Derik finally reached them, El had managed to untangle herself from the man and said a quick 'sorry sir' before getting ready to bolt again. But Derik had had enough of all this running around business, so he grabbed her by the forearm, maybe a bit harder than was necessary, but by Merlin, enough was enough! 'Well, you've lead me on a merry chase, Miss Johnson, but now it's time to go back to Hogwarts, and see what Dumbledore wants to do with you.'

He had begun to drag her towards the door, when the man, who was pulling himself up from the floor, yelled after him. 'Hey! Who the hell are you? You can't just drag her off like that!'

Derik paused, and glanced back at the man, before looking down at the girl who had finally managed to her feet under her enough to start trying to yank away from his grip. 'Who is he?'

'No one, I don't know him. Now let me go.' She gave a hard twist of her arm and she slipped out of his grip, but he just grabbed her backpack with the other hand instead.

'Don't pretend you don't know him, I saw you recognised him when you crashed into each other.'

He watched as El's face shut down in that emotionless mask she put on when she was concentration hard. Derik was about point out whatever she said next better not be a lie, when the man, who was become quiet annoying by this point, shoved himself between El and Derik. 'Would you please let Miss Brewer go, and explain who you are and your connection to her?'

Derik was about state that he would _not _be explaining himself, when another bumbling muggle entered himself in the mess.

'Is everything okay here gents?' A hospital security guard was looking warily at the three of them, and with a quick glance around the waiting room, Derik saw that the entire waiting room was dead silent with everyone staring at them.

'It's okay, I'm Detective Inspector Anthony Jameson with the Scotland Yard.'

The man flashed a badge at the security guard, which seem to relax him a bit, but he didn't leave until El said, 'It's fine.' Addressing Derik and the DI she added, 'Why don't we take this outside.'

After nodding to each other, both men escorted El outside, when the DI rounded on Derik again. 'Alright, who are you and what is your connection to Miss Brewer?'

With the man being part of the muggle police force, it changed how Derik had to deal with the situation, so, assuming that this 'Miss Brewer' was El, Derik answered, 'I'm a teacher of a boarding school in which she,' he gestured to El, 'is enrolled in. She ran away, and I was sent to fetch her. Now would you kindly explain why you keep calling her Brewer, her name is Elizabeth Johnson.'

'Well that would be the third name that I've heard her call herself, and with convincing documentation for each too.' the detective admitted grudgingly. 'Who registered her into your school? I thought her uncle was dead.'

'Uncle?' Derik turned to El, 'So you do have family?'

'He died last year.' El said sneeringly to him, before turning to the detective, 'What do you want? I'm alive, I'm well. Hell I've even gotten myself in to a boarding school. Just let me go.' _A boarding school that you're running away from,_ thought Derik, but he kept that to himself, as he didn't think point it out would help the situation.

'I unfortunately need to take you down to Scotland Yard,' the detective said regretfully, while pulling out his hand cuffs.

While Derik was surprised at the detective inspectors statement, El had a much more extreme reaction. Her whole body tensed and her stance shifted so her knees were bent, ready to take off at a moment's notice. 'Why?' she said defensively, 'You promised to clear me of all charges.'

'I promised to clear you of all drug and prostitution charges…'

'Drug!? Prostitution!?' Derik exclaimed, what on all the magical land where they talking about!

'…but not for what you did to Magnusson. I'm sorry El, but you're under arrest for the attempted murder of Edward Magnusson.'

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** Sorry this chapter took a while, but it would have taken even longer if RandomAsRainbows hadn't kept reminding me that there are people wait for the next chapter of this. So thank you Rainbow, for keeping me going with writing this. If there are other people out there who are waiting for the next chapter of this, and I'm taking a while please don't hesitate to review or PM saying I need to update, because I'll take my time with this unless people tell me they like it and want me to hurry up.

So all this kinda leads up to my question for this chapter: How long is a reasonable time between updates? And please be reasonable, don't say a day or really even anything less than a week, because I will just give up if I have no hope in hell in sticking with a time you guys suggest.

Flynn


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